


Where No Suns Rise

by ShayneyL



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 02:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12571288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShayneyL/pseuds/ShayneyL
Summary: A science fiction ghost story, you might say.





	Where No Suns Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: All hail Paramount/Viacom. I'm playing with their stuff illicitly.

_I left my world to wander in_  
_this endless midnight sky,_  
_for space is just a starry night_  
_where no suns ever rise._  
_\- Tanith Lee_

  


       "I'm bored," Miry said, staring at the far too familiar walls of the cabin she shared with her parents. 

       Her mother looked up from her desk. "Run one of your holoprograms," she said.

        "I'm tired of them all." 

        "Ask Daddy to write you some new ones." 

        "His programs are all stupid." 

        "Miry! That's a very unkind thing to say." 

        "Well, they are." Her father's holoprograms were so babyish, and she wasn't a baby any more. 

        "Your father is the best holowriter on _Voyager_ ," her mother protested. But she seemed to understand, because after awhile, she said, "Maybe you could ask Uncle Harry instead." 

        Uncle Harry's programs weren't babyish. They were worse: they were educational. "I don't want any dumb holoprograms. I want to go someplace for real." 

        "You’ve traveled thousands of light-years," her mother said. "Few children have seen as much of the galaxy as you have." 

        "It doesn’t seem like it." 

        "Oh, Miry," her mother said, sighing. "I have to go to work. Don't forget to do your homework." She kissed Miry goodbye, then left. 

        Miry picked up the padd with her homework assignment. She started as usual, by writing her full name: Miral Shoshannah Paris-Torres. Which was dumb, since she was the only child on _Voyager_. No one else would be handing homework in. 

        She had been named after her grandmothers, one Klingon, and one human. Her parents hadn't been particularly close to their families, but, stranded light-years from home, they had felt the need to emphasize the old blood ties in the naming of their only child. But Miral Shoshannah was a lot of name for a little girl, so everyone on _Voyager_ called her Miry. 

        She was twelve years old, and had lived her entire life on board the starship _Voyager_. She'd never been off of it. When she was younger, she seemed to remember, they had sometimes visited planets. But she had been too little to go, and these days they avoided all contact with planets. Planets often had unfriendly inhabitants. Even when they didn't, they had gravity, and fighting gravity drained their resources. 

        Homework was so boring. Miry threw the padd down, and left her family's cabin. 

        _Voyager_ wasn't a very large ship. After twelve years, she knew it pretty well. The maze of Jefferies tubes was her playground. She could get practically anywhere in the ship through them. 

        Miry decided to do what she usually did when she was bored: go places she wasn't supposed to go. That's how she had met the Mad Doctor of Holodeck-2. He looked just like the EMH. In fact, he was a copy of the EMH. Or maybe the EMH was the copy? She wasn't quite sure. The Mad Doctor had gone crazy years ago, faced with a situation his programming wasn't designed for. They replaced him with a fresh copy. 

        Her parents had been angry at her at first, for breaking into the holodeck, but eventually they agreed she could visit if she wanted to. The Mad Doctor was crazy, but harmless. He quoted a lot of old philosophers and sang strange songs her dad called opera. 

        There were some other holograms among the crew. They didn't have enough organic crew, after years in the Delta Quadrant, so they made holographic copies of some key people. Her own dad had a holographic copy, who lived with Uncle Harry. Her mom said it was because his piloting skills were so essential. The rest of the crew called her dad "Paris" and the copy "Tom." 

        She thought about visiting the Mad Doctor again, but now that it was allowed, it had lost a lot of its appeal. 

        There was Cargo Bay 2. She was not allowed there. Too dangerous, supposedly. But what could be in a cargo bay that was that dangerous? 

        The door was always locked. No one went in there, so far as she could tell. Which made her even more curious. 

        Jefferies Tube 47 ran through that area, and it had a hatch that opened into the cargo bay. It was sealed, and took longer to hack than she expected. Jeez, what was in there? She was starting to get a little nervous. 

        Finally the hatch slid open. It was dark beyond. She switched on the flashlight she had brought. If she turned on the lights, someone might notice. 

        It didn't look very interesting. A lot of dusty crates. Still, it was a place she hadn't seen before, so she set about investigating. 

        It seemed to be mostly horticultural supplies. Light fixtures, trays, jars of chemicals, vials of seeds. She remembered hearing that this had once been an airponics bay. She wondered why it was no longer maintained. Seems like it would be useful. 

        There were some smaller boxes on shelves along the left wall. They seemed to contain personal belongings that for some reason weren't being used and hadn't been recycled. 

        She lifted a dress out of one box. It was pink, and small enough that it would probably fit her. Had it been Naomi Wildman's, maybe, when she was a child? Underneath it was a gold locket. Inside was a photo of a Talaxian. 

        Miry put the items back, and moved on. 

        Towards the back was a long, low container. Probably more airponics supplies...or maybe not. It was sleek and polished, nicer than the usual storage crate. Some kind of treasure, maybe? 

        It took her awhile to get it open. Finally, two panels on top slid aside. And she saw...herself. There was a little girl lying in the coffin, for that's what it was, she now realized. A girl with faint Klingon ridges on her forehead, wearing a dress Miry recognized. It was one she often wore herself. She reached out to touch the body. It was cold, frozen solid. 

        Miry screamed. The room went dark around her. 

# # # # # #

        Harry was working in Astrometrics when he got the call from Tom. "Harry, I'm in Sickbay. I found Miry." 

        Harry immediately transferred himself to Sickbay. Miry lay on a biobed. Which was a misnomer now. The scanners were set for computer diagnostics now, not biological patients. 

        Tom held his daughter's hand. "She was lying on the floor in Cargo Bay 2," he said. 

        The EMH-2 program was already running. He put the call out. "Senior staff to Sickbay." 

        They all flickered into existence. Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Seven, B'Elanna, Paris... Sickbay, no longer needed for its original function, had become a deluxe hololab of sorts. It had the best holo tech, outside the holodecks. 

        "Miry!" B'Elanna. She glared at Tom. "What did you do to her?" 

        Tom opened his mouth to answer, but couldn't think of anything to say. 

        Miry opened her eyes. "I'm dead," she whispered. "I saw my body. I'm dead. Why didn't you tell me I'm dead?" 

        "No, Miry, no," B'Elanna cried. "You're not dead. You're not! No..." 

        Tuvok and Janeway exchanged glances. Janeway spoke. "Miry...we're all dead." She took the girl's hand. "Our bodies are, anyway." 

        "We had no choice, sweetheart," Tom said. " _Voyager_ was so damaged we lost life support. We...had to let our bodies go to survive." 

        That was only part of the story. They had lost so many organics over the years. They had had to make holograms of the crew to keep the ship staffed. There had been talk of _Voyager_ becoming a generation ship early in their journey, but _Voyager_ was no one's idea of a good place to bring up a child. So there was only Naomi, conceived in the Alpha Quadrant, and Miry, conceived by accident. B'Elanna had thought she was sterile, as so many hybrids were. 

        "Holograms," Miry said. "You're...we're all holograms." 

        "No," B'Elanna moaned. "No, no, no." 

        Harry stroked Miry's hair. "It's not so bad. We'll never grow old and die. We no longer have to worry about who'll run _Voyager_ if it takes 70 years to get back home. We can explore the universe forever, if we want." 

        "I'll never grow up," Miry said. "I'm not real." 

        "Her holomatrix is destablizing," the Doctor said. 

        "Deactivate program Miral-14," Janeway said. The child vanished. 

        "NOOO!" B'Elanna shrieked. 

        Paris took her in his arms and tried to comfort her. "Shhh, it's okay, B'Elanna, it will be all right. We'll try again, we'll get her back." 

        "Noooo," she sobbed. She got quieter and quieter, and Harry knew the EMH had activated a sedation subroutine. Soon she was limp and unconscious in Paris' arms. He laid her gently on the bed where Miry had lain. 

        "Damn it, Harry." His blue eyes were haunted. "This is cruel. She would be better off deleted. They both would." 

        Harry didn't know what to say. He agreed. The mad doctor down in the old holodeck was one thing. He was insane, but not unhappily so. B'Elanna and Miral were suffering. 

        "We need her, Paris," Tom said to his younger self. "She's the best engineer we have. If we don't maintain the ship, we all die." 

        "I know," Paris whispered hoarsely. "It's just..." 

        Harry shut his eyes against the raw pain on Paris' face. Tom and Paris blamed themselves for B'Elanna's insanity. Tom blamed himself for leaving her. Paris blamed himself for not being enough. They had created Paris - a copy made while Tom was still in love with B'Elanna - in hopes of stabilizing her. It had hadn't really helped. 

        "It's not your fault," Harry said. "We waited too late to copy their synaptic patterns. Their personalities are just a little...fragile. We'll try again. If we protect them from stress, it will be all right." 

        "No, it won't," the EMH said acerbically. "The problem isn't stress, or degraded synaptic patterns. It's that the originals weren't very stable to begin with. The organic B'Elanna Torres was mentally unstable, and she passed her defect on to her offspring." 

        "Shut up!" Paris shouted. Being younger, he was a little less mature, a little less controlled, than Tom. 

        "We all have breaking points," Harry said. "All of us." He sent the EMH a sharp look. "Just look at the resident of Holodeck-2." The EMH looked away. "We just have to try and make sure B’Elanna doesn’t reach hers." 

        Seven looked up from the diagnostic she was running. "The programs are too damaged to continue functioning. They must be replaced." 

        "What triggered it this time?" Chakotay asked. 

        "She found her corpse in Cargo Bay 2," Tom said. 

        "Maybe if we had a space burial...?" Harry suggested. They had done that with the other bodies, but B'Elanna didn't want to let Miry's go. 

        "I do not think that would change the ultimate outcome," Tuvok said. "This is the fourteenth version of the Miral Paris holoprogram. All have eventually destabilized." 

        Harry conceded the point. Miry always found out the truth eventually. From hacking into the computers, from breaking into parts of the ship she wasn't supposed to be in, from listening into crew conversations while playing in the Jefferies tubes. Once she'd stolen a shuttlecraft for a joyride and noticed her body disappearing as she got out of range of the ship's holo-emitters. Maybe it would work with a more docile child...but Miry was too much her parents' daughter. 

        "We should tell her from the beginning. It's wrong to lie to her," Chakotay said. 

        "We tried that, too," Harry pointed out. "It didn't work. We can't expect a 12-year-old to keep a secret from her own mother." That was the problem, really. B'Elanna couldn't accept that her daughter was dead. Harry couldn't blame her. She was a mother. He didn't like to think about how his own mother would feel about how her son had ended up. 

        "Perhaps if we erased Lt. Torres' memories of her daughter?" Tuvok suggested. 

        Tom and Paris both glared at him. "You're not erasing the memories of my daughter," they said almost in unison. 

        "It wouldn't work, anyway," Harry said. "The whole crew would have to never mention her name again. Miry's been on _Voyager_ for 20 years now. Someone would always slip up." 

        "Please," Paris said. "Please, just delete them. Let them go." 

        Janeway spoke. "I’m sorry, Paris. We need B'Elanna too much. We can’t afford to lose her." 

        And to keep B'Elanna, they had to keep Miry. Paris leaned over and kissed B’Elanna’s forehead, tears falling gently on her face. The tears were holographic, but the emotion was real. 

        "Delete Torres-14 and Miral-14," Janeway said. "Activate Torres-15 and Miral-15." 

# # # # # #

        "I'm bored," Miry said, staring at the far too familiar walls of the cabin she shared with her parents. 

        Her mother looked up from her desk. "Run one of your holoprograms," she said.


End file.
